Journal of APF Command and Staff College

Journal of APF Command and Staff College (2020) 3:1, 35-48 Journal of APF Command and Staff College Local Election in Nepal: Means for Ensuring Electoral Accountability Narendra Raj Paudel, Associate Professor Central Department of Public Administration,Tribhuvan University Email: [email protected] Srijana Pahari Faculty Member, Greenfield National College Email: [email protected]

Article History Abstract Received 10 December 2019 The electoral accountability is considered a mechanism through which Accepted 27 December 2019 voters hold the government responsible for their performance. The

main assumption in this article is that the more performance of local representatives as per their promise before elections under prevailing

laws likely leads to more electoral accountability. To test this hypothesis, 455 questionnaires were collected from ordinary citizens and 28 interviews were taken with respective Rural Municipalities and Municipality’s chief, deputy chief, and an executive from Sindhuli and

Surkhet district of Nepal. The result showed that the performance of

Surkhet districts’ local governments have a better significant Keywords relationship with the electoral accountability index rather Sindhuli Election, electoral district. Despite this relationship, people were neither satisfied, nor accountability, unsatisfied with the performance of the local representatives. There performances, local bodies, are a lot of hindering factors associated with the performance of local Nepal representatives which include lack of financial resources, lack of

knowledge on how to handle local government, lack of employees, lack of infrastructure, etc. Therefore, the study concludes that electoral

accountability in Nepal is in the transitional stage.

Corresponding Editor Ramesh Raj Kunwar [email protected]

36 Journal of APF Command and Staff College (2020) 3:1, 35-48

Electoral accountability

The electoral accountability is considered one of the mechanisms through which voters hold the government responsible for their performance (Fumarola, 2016). The notion of periodic election allows sanctioning political parties if they do wrong and reward if they perform as per citizens‘ mandate. Electoral accountability depends on two sets of conditions: voters‘ ability to assign responsibility for performance outcomes to incumbents and voters' ability to act upon those assignments of responsibility (Hellwig and Samuels, 2008). The voter‘s ability to hold governments to account is greatly influenced by the contingent characteristics of the political context (Fumarola, 2016). Schedler (1999) defines the concept of accountability which is equal to answerability plus enforcement. Answerability is about the obligation of government to provide information and justification for the performances or series of performance carried out by political parties whereas enforcement stands for the sanction. Voters evaluate and judge the performance of political parties whether political parties act according to citizens' mandate or not. It is said that power holders are free to act as they choose without any checks and balances in the absence of answerability. In the absence of enforcement, where there are no consequences for failing to provide a satisfactory account, so the process of demanding and providing an account is undermined.

In European democracies, voters‘ ability to express dissatisfaction with economic performance is affected by specific characteristics of political context (Fumarola, 2016). Government clarity of responsibility (Hobolt et al, 2013), the existence of available alternatives (Anderson, 2000), the influence of the electoral system (Powell, 2000), pluralistic mass media may contribute to the fun